


And I lie sleepless

by Ilrona



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hux does ridiculous things in his sleep, Kylo is mostly amused, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Somnophilia, just a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 12:23:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7439076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilrona/pseuds/Ilrona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo, with the help of the Force, sleeps as if he were frozen in carbonite. Hux, however, is a terribly restless sleeper.</p><p>There are a few surprises when they start sleeping in the same bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I lie sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/3961.html?thread=8227961#cmt8227961) at the TFA kink meme.
> 
> Title is from the lyrics of ‘Kissing You Goodbye’ by The Pierces.

When Leia Organa’s son was small, and a frightening, mysterious and intriguing someone made from shadows and dark things started to lurk in his dreams, he could not fall asleep easily. To help him, his mother tried to teach him a little exercise of the mind which had been given to her by her mother, the last Queen of Alderaan. Ben's mother told him:  _Imagine a tree full of starblossoms, and pluck them off one by one. You will fall asleep before the tree is empty_.

Now, Kylo thinks not about some silly tree on the destroyed planet of the enemy general. The image he paints onto the canvas of his mind is a black wall with little cracks from which light seeps out. He pours black into the cracks, one after the other. He always falls asleep before the wall is completely black.

This time, with another person in the bed, it’s a bit harder. When his attention is stolen from the black wall as he stares at the calm, almost serene expression on Hux's face, illuminated by the light of the datapad, there are a few more white cracks when he goes back to the wall.

But it’s not that bad. Hux’s mind is focused on reading the mission reports, even though he’s not as full of energy as he’s during the day. Not one stray thought spills out of his head. He doesn't distract Kylo too much now.

Once the only thing in his mind is the black wall, every thought pushed back, every dream sent away, every fear silenced, he lets go of the Force. He knows that the Force remains there, as it is everywhere always, but for now he stops listening to its eternal vibrant song. He sleeps well, secure in the knowledge that the Force watches over him, keeping vigil above him. It will wake him up if there is any threat.

He falls asleep long before Hux even puts his datapad down, lying on his stomach, cheek on the pillow, arms straight at his sides.

He wakes up, hours before he has to, because of a sudden thud, very loud in the empty silence of the room. He calls for the light, then squints in the sudden too intense brightness. There’s no other body in the bed. The sheets are a mess, so rumpled they look as if they have barely survived some decadent orgy.

The Force is not blaring warning claxons in his mind, so he relaxes. He blinks sleep out of his eyes as he walks around the bed. Hux is lying on the floor, tangled in his blanket, staring blearily up at the ceiling – and then at Kylo, once he walks into his field of vision.

The sight of the glorious General Hux on the floor, a look of confusion on his face that quickly darkens into irritation, amuses Kylo.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be such a restless sleeper,” Kylo says as he offers a hand. Hux doesn’t take it, gets up on his own. His lips are turned down in a sullen pout, which he likely wouldn’t allow himself to show to Kylo if he wasn’t half-asleep. Kylo wants to kiss it, but he isn’t certain yet whether kissing outside of sex is the sort of thing they should be doing. Their mouths taste bad now probably, anyway.

* * *

He expected Hux’s sleeping habits to be different. The way he moves when he’s awake always seems so self-conscious and efficient, barely any unnecessary movement. It’s unnatural: too tense, too stiff. His body seems to be made of durasteel when he’s standing on the bridge with his back straight and head high, not pliant flesh and blood. Very rarely, Kylo catches a few little slips: Hux begins to pace around, but stops quickly after the first steps. His fingers tense into fists, sometimes, before he relaxes them again.

It seems that when he’s asleep, the tight leash he keeps on his body’s movements is taken out of his hand.

Once the datapad is finally put away, and Hux is left alone in the darkness with nothing to occupy himself with, his thoughts turn into a pandemonium. Now that his mind can’t focus on a single problem which has to be solved, his thoughts start running around like unruly children. It’s an absolute mess. Even when Kylo is not trying to read his mind – even when he’s trying very hard to ignore him – a few fragments of the content of Hux’s mind fall out and reach Kylo, buzzing around him like pesky insects. They are little half-finished thoughts that make no sense without context –  _I must read again the_  and  _Father would like it if_  and  _Maybe that’s not how it._

It takes Kylo a few nights to figure out how to deal with this. But once he finds the solution – he draws a wall around his own mind with the Force, and Hux’s wandering thoughts bounce off it – he can fall asleep quickly once again.

No wonder Hux is so restless in his sleep. How could his body remain motionless when his mind is such a chaotic mess? Just as his thoughts run around his mind, his body rolls and kicks and thrashes around in the bed. Sometimes the thoughts jump out of the borders of his mind, spill into the rest of the world as words mumbled in his sleep.

* * *

Kylo wakes up to Hux gnawing on his earlobe. For a moment his body – still on his stomach, arms still straight – tenses in alarm. But the pressure of Hux’s teeth is not hard enough to feel like a threat, so Kylo doesn’t do anything. It’s not the sexy kind of biting, but rather the way someone tries to eat a fruit from a strange planet with a hard peel, not wanting to bite down too hard and leave some of their teeth behind.

“I’ll eat it, I promise.” The words pour out of Hux’s mouth, accompanied by a little bit of saliva getting onto Kylo’s ear. This is not what makes Kylo decide to wake Hux up, though, but the pitiful, unsettlingly childlike way the words are said, very unlike Hux. He pulls his head away – relieved when Hux doesn’t clamp down with his teeth – and wakes Hux up.

“You were talking in your sleep about eating something,” Kylo explains while Hux rubs his fist clumsily against his tired eyes. There’s something about this gesture too that seems strangely vulnerable and childish, making Kylo a little uneasy. “While trying to eat my ear.”

“Sorry,” Hux mumbles. “I had a – dream.”

“Yes, I guessed that,” Kylo says. Hux glares at him, though it’s a lot less impressive with the remains of the unpleasant dream still clinging to his expression.

“When I was a kid, we had little money to spend on food, so most of it was tasteless or worse. There was this ration bar that was really bad, but I had to eat it because there was some kind of vitamin in it that was necessary for a growing child.” Hux looks away, a shadow of embarrassment falling onto his face. “Fuck. I shouldn’t have told you. It’s such a ridiculous thing to dream about, especially after all these years.”

* * *

There’s a hard dick grinding down against his ass, Kylo realizes as he surfaces from the depths of his sleep and is once again able to think coherently.

It feels – surprising, but good, too.

Hux’s body feels almost like a heavy, warm blanket – except no blanket has ever tried to fuck Kylo with such desperation. There’s absolutely no finesse here. All Hux does is rub his erection against Kylo’s ass with clumsy, mindless eagerness. The several layers of fabric and the less than perfect angle don’t give Kylo a lot of pleasure. His own cock twitches, but doesn’t harden yet.

Hux’s not speaking now, there are only these quiet little moans as he continues dry humping Kylo in his dream. Kylo wonders what sort of dirty talk a Hux lost in his wet dream would come up with. If Kylo asked things now – just something like  _Does that feel good?_  or  _You like this?_  – would Hux hear him and answer him in his sleep? Or would that wake him up?

He should wake Hux up.

It’s not hard, even though he’s still somewhat sleepy, to turn onto his back and roll Hux’s body off his own. Hux asks for the light, and then he sits bolt upright, looking down at Kylo with such horror that Kylo has to press his lips together so he doesn’t laugh.

Hux glances at his lap. Kylo follows his eyes to the very obvious tent in his pajama pants, a sight that makes just a little bit more blood rush to Kylo’s own cock. A bright blush of shameful embarrassment blooms on Hux’s cheek.

“I,” Hux begins, then stops, his voice failing him – something which simply doesn’t happen to Hux. “I apologize.”

“It’s fine.” Kylo shrugs.

“I’m going to the refresher to take care of this. Go back to sleep, Ren.”

“I could help,” Kylo offers quickly. He’s too tired to do much. He won’t be able to take Hux’s cock into his throat, or to bother with preparation and penetration, but he’s more than capable of getting Hux off with his hands, too.

They end up lying on their sides facing each other, pajama pants and underwear pushed down to their thighs – they don’t have the energy to take them completely off. Hux is as hard as he ever is, and Kylo is more than halfway there as well. He takes Hux’s hot dick into his hand, starting with a slow, comfortable rhythm.

“I had no idea you were so needy for me,” Kylo teases. “It’s not enough for you when we’re awake – you want to fuck me even while we’re sleeping.”

“It’s not you,” Hux huffs, pushing his hips into Kylo’s grip. “This happens sometimes, even when I’m alone. I wake up to realize there’s a pillow between my thighs and my dick is either hard or already spent.”

Kylo moans at the image Hux’s words paint in his mind: fucking the pillow under his hips in his sleep while panting against the other pillow under his head, perhaps even drooling onto it a little. It’s both pathetic and, Kylo admits a little begrudgingly, endearing. His own cock is fully hard now. Hux notices it, smirking.

“It felt nice,” Kylo admits. He watches as Hux spits into both palms before taking Kylo’s cock into his hands. The saliva makes the slide of Hux’s hands on him better, though the friction is still a bit uncomfortable, too dry. It only sharpens Kylo's lust. “Having you rut against me like some desperate animal in heat.” Hux gasps, his cheeks flushing with humiliation and anger at the words, but his cock jumps in Kylo’s hand, and Kylo can feel pre-come sliding down onto his fingers. “We could sleep without clothes. And then you could rub your naked dick against me until you come on my skin. Making such a mess.”

This feels nice, this unexpected, unhurried handjob just after waking up in the middle of the night, not as intense as the sex they have when they’re more awake, but still good. This secret little moment while they should be sleeping.

“Imagine a night when I was the one who got fucked,” Kylo continues, deciding to keep his strokes slow and easy. Too rough, and Hux would be unable to listen, too lost in pleasure. “And when you climb on top of me in your dreams, my hole would be still stretched, some leftover lube making it wet enough for you. Your dick would push inside so easily, and you would wake up and realize that you’ve managed to get balls deep into my ass while still asleep. Because that’s how much you want me.”

Hux whimpers, closes his eyes, and comes all over Kylo’s hand.

* * *

It takes Hux longer to get ready in the morning than Kylo. He shaves, brushes his hair – Hux’s bed hair is a lot worse than Kylo’s, despite Kylo’s longer hair –, puts that pomade into it, then brushes his teeth, puts some concealer under his eyes to hide the dark proof of how difficult it is for him to sleep well. This routine seems to be both soothing and a way to wake him up: when he’s done, his eyes are no longer hazy with the last echoes of sleep. They’re sharp, hard, cruel. Eager to start the day, ready for anything.

“How do you sleep so well?” Hux grumbles one morning, walking towards the refresher with all the grace of a rusty old droid with one of its legs missing. “I thought you would be screaming and thrashing around in your sleep. Lighting the blankets on fire with the Force, or who knows what else your mysterious powers are capable of. I didn’t even want to let you sleep here at all, actually. I don’t know why I did. I was worried you will wake me up, taking the blanket away from me or kicking me out of the bed. When I wake up, you’re in the same position you fell asleep in! Like you are frozen in carbonite. How is that even possible?”

“You’re more than capable of kicking yourself out of the bed,” Kylo teases, enjoying the bleary glare Hux shoots him. The door of the refresher slides shut with a lot more elegance than Hux possesses at the moment, hiding Hux from Kylo’s sight.

* * *

Kylo lets the room remain in darkness, but he moves closer to Hux, trying to figure out the borders of his body with only his touch. Hux seems to be lying on his stomach, his body shivering under Kylo’s wandering, careful hands. Kylo can hear desperate gasping sounds, as if someone is panting after running through the entire Finalizer, or perhaps trying to stifle their crying.

“You’re not supposed to behave like this!” Hux grits out, and for a moment Kylo thinks he’s talking to him – is he not supposed to be… what? Try to comfort Hux? But then Hux continues, and Kylo realizes he’s caught in some dream Kylo is locked out of. “It has to be done! You coward! You fucking coward, are you going to turn your back on us now?”

Very curious, Kylo tries to peek into Hux’s mind. But he’s clumsy, he pushes in too violently. Hux kicks out, a flash of pure panic, and catches Kylo’s shin with his foot. It hurts, but Kylo has felt pain a lot worse than this.

“Sorry, sorry,” Kylo whispers frantically, rubbing Hux’s arm vigorously to wake him up. “I just wanted to pull you out of your bad dream.” It’s a lie, he knows. He wanted to know who Hux was talking to.

Hux wakes up and asks for the light. Kylo moves away, giving him space. A lock of red hair clings to Hux's sweaty forehead. His mouth hangs open, making him look ridiculous, silly and vulnerable. It looks, for a moment, like his eyes are wet with tears, but then he blinks, and perhaps it was only Kylo’s imagination.

* * *

When Kylo first saw Hux’s huge bed, he thought it was a luxury – an uncharacteristic thing in his otherwise simple and mostly unadorned quarters. Hux has many flaws, but wasting the First Order’s money on extravagant personal items certainly isn’t one. He chose the biggest possible size because of all the sprawling and moving around his body does while sleeping.

That is why he allows Kylo to sleep there. At first Kylo liked to think that it was a proof of trust or fondness, allowing someone else into his bedroom, his most sacred sanctuary. But now Kylo understands that Hux is simply so used to his bed that it would be even more difficult to rest anywhere else, and Hux already has a hard time getting enough sleep.

Now Kylo’s far from the Finalizer, and Hux is not in the bed, and Kylo can’t sleep.

He groans in frustration, punching the pillow – wrong pillow, pale green and embroidered with yellow flowers instead of Hux’s plain grey one, and it smells, instead of Hux’s bland First Order shampoo, like the cloyingly sweet detergent the cheap hotel uses (the towels in the bathroom smell the same).

He had been able to fall asleep, using the Force and the black wall with the white cracks. But he woke up suddenly a few hours after going to sleep with a sense of wrongness deep in his bones.

Hux's absence feels wrong, as unpleasant as a pounding headache.

Kylo used to be able to sleep anywhere. Once, he slept on the hard ground of a cave, the corpses of a kath hound family rotting only a few feet from him (too exhausted to throw them out, even with the Force, he fell asleep the moment his body touched the ground). During another mission he slept on a thorny branch crawling with fluorescent bugs. Under the tree was a toxic lake that would have destroyed everything but his bones in less than a minute. That wasn't his favorite place, but he still slept soundly, not waking up once before dawn.

He should be glad Hux is not here to kick him and tug his blankets away and murmur words that make no sense. Instead, all he can think about is what Hux could be doing now, alone in his bed.

Once, he woke up and realized that Hux is not in the bed. He was sitting at his table, his face illuminated by the holomap of the Outer Rim Territories. Kylo could feel, when he tentatively brushed against his thoughts, the remnants of a horrible nightmare clinging to his mind like black mud, but he didn’t know what the nightmare was about. He could have found out, forcing his way into Hux’s mind, but Hux would have been mad. Instead they continued the game of dejarik they had begun before Hux decided that he would rather kneel between Kylo’s legs and suck him off. Once that game was finished, they started another one. Kylo spent the next day yawning behind his mask, but it was sort of worth it for Hux's grateful almost-smile.

But Hux can take care of himself. Kylo doesn’t have to worry about him: Hux would hate him if he knew Kylo worried about him even a little. Hux used to sleep on his own for many years before Kylo. He can deal with anything that happens on his own. If he falls off the bed, he will climb into it again. If he has a nightmare, he will wake up, read a little to calm down, and go back to sleep. If he wakes up hard, he will jerk off in the refresher and then sleep again.

Kylo stares out of the window, seeing now not the endless expanse of space, but dark trees with purple and silver lanterns hanging from their leafless branches. He refuses to ask the hotel for some sleeping medicine, not trusting them enough. Maybe he should take, next time he goes on a longer mission, something from Hux to keep him company while he sleeps? But the idea makes him cringe the moment it appears in his mind. No. He’s not little Ben, clutching the tiny plush Wookie to his chest as he tried to fall asleep in a bed too big for him. He won’t cling to some memento from Hux just so he can do something as trivial as fucking falling asleep.

He stares sullenly at the bright green line between the floor and the door. He will soon get rid of this… weakness. He has to. Not only is this whole thing awfully embarrassing, it will make him constantly tired and therefore less efficient if it continues for too long.

He’s just not used to not feeling Hux’s presence so close to him after all those nights spent in the same room. He needs a little time to adjust. But he’s not worried. In a few nights, he will be able to sleep again. Kylo is not a creature of habits: if something is different than it used to be, he will get used to it. After all, he had to deal with changes a lot bigger than this before.


End file.
